"Evil is powerless if the Good are unafraid" ~~Ronald Reagan

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By Daniel Greenfield

January 18, 2012

Fact checkers and truth squads are the media’s latest tool for blurring the line between the editorial page and the new page. The ubiquitous fact checks are editorializing dressed up as verification. While on some occasions there are actual facts to verify, for the most part the fact checks defend a partisan liberal viewpoint on a particular issue.

So no sooner did Rick Perry suggest that Turkey had no place in NATO and that some perceive its government to be run by Islamic terrorists than the media rolled out its fact checks. In the spirit of fact checking the fact checkers, let’s have a fact check of our own.

CNN Statement: “Turkey is not ruled by Islamic terrorists. It is led by a party with Islamist roots, the Justice and Freedom Party, or AKP.”

Those are the facts according to CNN’s Truth Squad, which took its name from a certain book by George Orwell. But let’s look at the actual facts.

The Facts: The AKP emerged out of a series of banned Islamist political movements. CNN’s Lie Squad mentions that the AKP’s current leader of Turkey Erdogan was banned for reading an Islamic poem in public. It neglects to mention thecontent of the poem.

“The minarets are our bayonets; the domes are our helmets. Mosques are our barracks, the believers are soldiers. This holy army guards my religion. Almighty, Our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom.”

It also neglects to mention the context in which it was read, at protests that were being conducted by Islamists after their Welfare Party was disqualified. Erdogan was not jailed for reading an Islamic poem, he was jailed for reading a poem calling for a violent Islamic overthrow of the government.

Erdogan was specifically convicted of “inciting hatred based on religious differences.” There’s quite a difference between noting that Erdogan was convicted of Islamic bigotry and just writing that he was convicted for reading an Islamic poem. Would CNN write equally vaguely that David Irving was put on trial for writing a book?

What exactly was the Welfare Party? It was an Islamist party under Prime Minister Erbakan, Erdogan’s Islamist predecessor. Erbakangave some of his thoughts to the press a few years ago in which he explained that the Jews run the world, organized the Crusades, control all the money and created the Protestant Church.

The AKP’s leaders emerged out of Erbakan’s Milli Görüs based movements. Another group that emerged out of Milli Görüs is IHH which has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States government and has ties to Al Qaeda. Erdogan maintains close ties to IHH and his son is a member

Erdogan has his own Al Qaeda connections

Erdogan has his own Al Qaeda connections. Yasin Al-Qadi, who funneled millions to Al Qaeda is a close friendand though his assets have been frozen worldwide, he enjoys a safe haven in Turkey. The co-founder of the AKP party, Erdogan’s senior and advisor and right hand man, Cuneyt Zapsu gave Al Qaedaa mere 300,000 dollars.

So while technically Erdogan and Gul are not going out and planting bombs, they have close ties to those who do and they support them. Islamist parties have gone two routes. They have infiltrated the political system when possible and when impossible they have turned to terrorism. Erdogan’s poem made it quite clear that he was contemplating the latter. Had the AKP not succeeded then Erdogan might be giving orders to plant bombs in public places. Since it didn’t he instead supports terrorist groups like Hamas.

Is it inaccurate to say that Turkey is ruled by people perceived by some as Islamic terrorists? Some inside Turkey even perceive the AKP that way. Can AKP leaders be described as Islamic terrorists? A co-founder and a board member of the AKP is an Al Qaeda donor. Erdogan protected a leading Al Qaeda moneyman who was designated as a terrorist by just about every government and law enforcement agency on the planet.

Responding to Perry the Turkish Foreign Ministry sneered that Turkey had been in NATO when Perry was two years old. Which is a nice line, but that Turkey no longer exists. Erdogan’s AKP controlled system has purged the military with the claim the claim of a vast conspiracy that makes Stalin’s Moscow Trials seem credible. Comparing the Turkey of then to the present day is like comparing the Germany which joined the League of Nations in 1926 to Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Turkey still has the same name, but it is no longer the same country, instead it’s an Islamic empire.

Turkish ethnic cleansing of the native peoples of Cyprus remains a blot on NATO

Finally, does Turkey belong in NATO? Aside from its terrorist flirtations, there is Turkey’s continued occupation of Cyprus. The Republic of Cyprus is an EU member, a third of whose territory is occupied by Turkish settlers. Turkish ethnic cleansing of the native peoples of Cyprus remains a blot on NATO along with the numerous other atrocities that have been carried out and continued to be carried out by the Turkish state.

In addition to Turkey’s genocide of Armenians, there is its continued repression of its Kurdish population. The Turkish state holds tens of thousands of political prisoners, many of them for the mere crime of speaking their native language. Turkish forces have repeatedly invaded Iraqi Kurdistan, massacring the civilian population and are even suspected of using chemical weapons.

Hundreds of Kurdish children sit in Turkish jail for merely participating in political protests. The members of a Kurdish children’s choir which visited San Francisco and sang a Kurdish folk song were put on trial. Their choir director has an arrest warrant still out for her and remained in the United States.

Does a brutal regime that oppresses its own population, occupies the territory of an EU member state and supports terrorists belong in NATO?

Is there any reasonable person who is not a member of the press or a diplomat who really thinks that it does? Take a look at a list of NATO members like Canada, the United States, Portugal, Norway and Turkey… and see which one doesn’t belong on that list.

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So who is the man who got the “hug treatment”? Erdoğan has shown a commitment to Islamist politics, has demonstrated hostility toward Israel, recently downgrading relations andexpelling its ambassador, and says he doesn’t believeHamas is a terrorist organization. These views have increased his stature across the Middle East.

This latest warm gesture to a leader that doesn’t always represent American values might remind some readers of the controversial bow President Obama gave Saudi King Abdullah at the G-20 two years ago.

State department protocol indeed decrees that presidents bow to no one, and has had to deal with similar controversies before, when then president Bill Clinton did a semi-bow to Japan’s Emperor Akihito.